User:Hassocks5489/Brighton

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Toponymy
Complete: see mainspace.

History
Complete up to end of 18th century: see mainspace.

Royalty had visited Brighton before the late 18th century—King Charles II was sheltered overnight while fleeing England after the Battle of Worcester in 1651, then smuggled out via Shoreham—but when the Prince of Wales CONTINUE. How to integrate with existing material?...

Geography and topography
Complete: see mainspace.

Climate
Complete: see mainspace.

Boundaries and areas
Complete: see mainspace.

Demography
Needs work. Refer to 2021 census.

Governance and politics
Complete: see mainspace.

Economy
Brighton is a popular destination for conferences, exhibitions and trade fairs, and has had a purpose-built conference centre since 1977. Direct income from the Brighton Centre's 160 events per year is £8 million, and a further £50 million is generated indirectly by visitors spending money during their stay. Events range from political party conferences to concerts.

The mainstay of Brighton's economy for its first 700 years was fishing. Open land called the Hempshares (the site of the present Lanes) provided hemp for ropes; sails were made from flax grown in Hove; nets were dried and boats were kept on the open land which became Old Steine; and fishermen lived and worked on the foreshore below the East Cliff, in an area known as Lower Town. Herring and mackerel were sometimes used in ecclesiastical and manorial transactions, a tradition which ended in the 19th century. As Brighton grew, many fishermen moved to the Carlton Hill area and used its many warehouses and workshops to cure and smoke their catches. The industry was so important in the town's early history that in 1579 a commission of important residents, formed at the Privy Council of England's request, commanded the fishermen to document how they worked and how they divided and distributed their catches and profits. These customs were then enshrined in law. Two original copies of The Book of All The Auncient Customs heretoforeused amonge the fishermen of the Toune of Brighthelmstone [sic] survive. In 1580, the year it was published, Brighton's 80-boat, 10,000-net fleet was the largest in southern England and employed 400 men. Herring and mackerel were the main products, but plaice, cod and conger eels were also fished. By 1790 there were 100 boats, but this declined to 48 by 1948. A fish market established below King's Road in 1864, replacing the ancient open-air market on the beach, moved to Carlton Hill in 1960 but closed in 2005. The present, much smaller fleet is based at Brighton Marina.

The 2.67 acre Brighton Retail Park on Carden Avenue in Hollingbury has three retail warehouses totalling 42329 sqft. As of 2024 they are let to Argos, Next and Marks & Spencer, whose unit was previously let to the defunct MFI furniture group. The retail park was owned by Legal & General's pension fund until January 2012, when it was sold to Scottish Widows Investment Partnership. Hollingbury Retail Park, with Matalan and Brantano Footwear stores, a 102000 sqft Asda hypermarket and a 150-space car park, is adjacent.

See NEB pp108–109 for shopping and tourism stuff; pp111–113 for employment, new media, employment sectors and largest employers.

That book about British railway architecture says something like "the locomotive works was Brighton's only significant industry".

Specific stuff for Economy of Brighton and Hove
Small boats were built in workshops at both Brighton and Hove beaches in the 19th century, and until 1905 or later at Hove. The firm of May & Thwaites, which specialised in fishing luggers, were the main boatbuilders locally.

Clothing manufacturer Kayser Bondor acquired part of a former school in Portslade in 1949 and started producing hosiery and underwear. In October 1957 a new 38000 sqft factory (known locally as the "Palace of Venus") was built in Wellington Road. Up to 650 people were employed. The company was taken over by Courtaulds in 1966. By the 1980s the factory produced, among other things, more than 25,000 bras for Marks & Spencer every week.

Seven of the eight factories of 1,800-employee machine tool manufacturing company Kearney & Trecker CVA were in the Brighton and Hove area. The head office and main factory was at Portland Road in Aldrington. It had a foundry, sheet metal and machine workshops, a casting workshop, a welding department and a laboratory. A factory at Coombe Road in Brighton produced electrical items; one at Eaton Road in Hove was used for assembly of products; and another at Wellington Road in Portslade dealt with research and development. The other three factories were on Crowhurst Road in Hollingbury and dealt mostly with large machinery. At its height the company had 1,800 employees and 400000 sqft of factory space, but after several takeovers it left the area in the late 1960s. The Crowhurst Road premises was turned into a warehouse by Sussex Stationers and is now owned by a cash and carry wholesaler.

One of Hove's largest industrial businesses was Harrington's coachbuilders, which moved to Old Shoreham Road in 1930 from Brighton. At its height more than 600 people worked for the company, which made bodies for coaches, buses, fire engines, horseboxes and other vehicles, and 200 were still employed in 1966. The company was taken over in that year, and the works—an "imposing edifice" between the railway line (to which it was connected by a private siding), Amherst Crescent and Hove Cemetery—was demolished and replaced by a British Telecom office. This was in turn replaced by a PC World store in 1999.

Quotes relating to offices in Brighton
"Brighton, situated at the bottom of the M23 beyond Gatwick and Crawley, has a rather different office market [from that of South East England as a whole]. It is characterised by a number of financial institutions and general office occupiers attracted by a combination of quality of life, a well educated workforce and access to London. However, the market suffers from a shortage of quality accommodation and rather sporadic demand."

"At present there is limited availability of quality office space in Brighton. Anston House in Preston Road is a good quality refurbishment of an older building, and Exion 27,although new, is more of a high-tech development situated on the edge of Brighton."

Banks
Brighton Union Bank was dissolved on 31 August 1894.

Public services
Summarise relevant material from Public services in Brighton and Hove.

Health and welfare
Statistics on health and welfare are collected for the city as a whole and, in some cases, for individual wards. There are areas of significant deprivation, especially in the East Brighton, Queen's Park and Moulsecoomb & Bevendean wards. Citywide, the number of suicides is among the highest in England; male life expectancy is much lower than the average for South East England; use of illegal drugs is higher than anywhere else in the region; and the city has the second highest proportion of any local authority in England of both drug-related deaths and male alcohol-related deaths. (See the PDF for a potentially better ref.) According to statistics announced when the Brighton and Hove Drugs Commission was set up in October 2012, since 2005 21,000 crimes in the city had been attributable to drug use, costing the city council £27 million.

Education
A Free School stood in The Lanes from 1665 or earlier. It was on a twitten which once ran east from Meeting House Lane, survived until 1779 or later and was for boys only—although a similar school for girls opened nearby in 1702. In that year, the schools educated 27 boys and 20 girls respectively.

The Diocese of Chichester established its training institute for female schoolteachers in Brighton in 1842. The college provided teachers for Anglican schools throughout Sussex. In 1854, the institute moved to a new building on Ditchling Road in Round Hill. The flint-built Gothic Revival college, designed by William and Edward Habershon, occupies a high, prominent corner site. It went out of use in 1939 and is now Citibase Brighton—a serviced office complex.

Religion
See existing section under "Demography". Tweaks/updates needed?

Buildings and architecture
Summarise relevant material from Buildings and architecture of Brighton and Hove.

Beaches
Complete: see mainspace.

Parks and open space
Of the city's 98 public parks and open spaces, six are listed by English Heritage for their historic interest; all are in Brighton. Stanmer Park, the Kemp Town Enclosures, Queen's Park, the grounds of the Royal Pavilion, Woodvale Cemetery and the grounds of Preston Manor (including Preston Park) all have Grade II listed status.

Pubs and restaurants
The city council owns the freehold of 59 restaurants and cafés on the seafronts and in parks such as the Pavilion Gardens. These are leased to private operators, providing rental income.

Art, statues and memorials
Sculptures on the seafront include the Kiss Wall (1992) by Bruce Williams, a depiction in metal of people kissing; Passacaglia (1998), designed by Charles Hadcock using interlocking layers of recycled iron; and Afloat (1998), nicknamed The Green Bagel and The Seasick Doughnut, which was donated to Brighton by the Mayor of Naples Antonio Bassolino.

A well-known feature of Brighton's street art is the array of "cassette tape" imagery painted on junction boxes in the streets of the central area. The "playful, abstract and surreal" designs are the work of "Cassette Lord", the pseudonym of a graffiti artist who is involved with youth and community art projects in the city. The designs were painted with the city council's permission.

Statues and memorials in Brighton, all of which are Grade II-listed, include Newbury Abbot Trent's Peace Statue (1912), marking the Brighton/Hove boundary and commemorating Edward VII; Francis Leggatt Chantrey's statue of George IV (1828) near the North Gate of the Royal Pavilion; statues of John Cordy Burrows (a three-time Mayor of Brighton) and Queen Victoria erected in Old Steine in 1878 and 1897 respectively; and John William Simpson's Brighton War Memorial, erected in Old Steine Gardens in 1922.

LGBT community
In March 2009, the council estimated that Brighton and Hove's lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community consisted of between 30,000 and 40,000 people—up to 16% of the city's population. No statistics were available for smaller geographical areas.

The annual Pride festival, held in Preston Park and including a parade through central Brighton, is the United Kingdom's largest. About 150,000 people, more than 25% of whom were from the LGBT community, visited in 2009.

Transport
Complete: see mainspace.